Karaoke has achieved enormous popularity worldwide across all age groups. Karaoke is a video sing-along. Lyrics of a song being played are displayed in real time and in synchronization with the music of the song as it is being played. Karaoke has become very popular in bars, television shows, and at family gatherings.
As more people participate in karaoke, demand for consumer electronics that provide karaoke increases. Many existing video systems presently provide karaoke lyrics by use of media other than audio magnetic tape. For example, the lyrics to the song being played are recorded on a video tape. The lyrics are recorded on the video portion of the video tape in a manner similar to the recording of television images. Further, the lyrics may be superimposed over a television image of the performers of the music, such as a music video, or over other artistic video creations. Similarly, video disks may contain karaoke lyrics. As with video tape, the lyrics may be recorded along with other video information. Video disks usually store the lyrics and other video information digitally.
Audio tape recorders, such as cassette tape recorders, and audio tapes are not presently equipped to handle karaoke. In particular, a magnetic audio tape is divided into two longitudinal regions on the tape. One region of the tape is for recording and playing music when the tape is moving in one direction and the other region is for recording or playing music when the tape is moving in the opposite direction. Each region is divided into two spaced apart longitudinal tracks for recording music for the right and left channels of a stereo recording. Many tape players record either digital data which could be music or analog data, particularly music. Space for recording a separate track for karaoke lyrics is extremely limited on the tape. Furthermore, recording a third track may prevent karaoke tapes from being played on existing cassette recorders when it is desired not to display the karaoke lyrics.
There is a need for a cassette tape that can be interchangeably played both in a standard cassette recorder and a karaoke cassette player.
There is also a need for a cassette tape containing the karaoke lyrics that can be economically produced.
The invention resolves these problems by providing a cassette tape that can be interchangeably played in standard cassette players and karaoke cassette players and has the lyrics recorded on the audio tracks of a standard cassette tape in the present tape format but not retrievable by the standard cassette players.